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Spicing up employee training with games can make the education more effective and
fun, but what if the games cross the line of appropriateness?

The question arises from promotional materials by San Diego, Calif.-based AdVenture
Games, which offers a game called “Office Escape Room.” “Your team thinks they are
signed up for a one-hour motivational seminar in a conference room. What they don’t
realize is once they enter the room, they will be locked inside and given 60 minutes
to develop a plan, uncover solutions and get out,” the company said Jan. 5.

Whether a situation like that is, as AdVenture Games says, “a thrilling mental game
of discovery that will test and build participants’ skills”
may be a matter of opinion, but could it pose a risk to morale or even a liability
risk?

“Planning any team building activity alone can be risky,” Chad Michael, founder of
AdVenture Games, told Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 6 e-mail. “The financial investment
of the activity combined with removing your team from the workforce for the afternoon
needs to have a beneficial return.”

He said his company’s experiences with the programs lead to the conclusion that “the
element of surprise mixed with theatrics, diced with humor is a highly effective tool
to capture the interest of our participants. Though the idea of locking your team
in a room leaving them to their own devices to get out might sound risky; or kidnapping
your CEO and asking your colleagues to find him might sound like a recipe for disaster;
when done correctly, the activity comes as a welcomed surprise from a long day of
meetings on the agenda.”

Need for Balance

Although not commenting on these specific ideas, HR consultants and others argue for
a balanced approach. “Games are a great way to teach at any level, usually because
they stimulate many senses, provide fun (and therefore attention)
and generate personal interaction,” Bill Goodspeed, a former corporate executive who
has penned a satire about the business world, told Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 9 e-mail.
“Some examples I’ve used include scavenger hunts in new cities (team competition),
cooking contests, a logistics board game (The Beer Game), re-building Lego models
and building kites or boats. These are all very appropriate.”

Keep it relevant, Mike Kerr of Humor at Work, a Calgary, Canada-based company, told
Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 9 e-mail. “In a corporate setting the best training games
are ones where the participants have a clear understanding of why they are doing the
game, and even more importantly, what the intended purpose or lessons from the games
are. A thorough debriefing post-training can make all the difference between success
and failure.”

You might even want to avoid calling it a game. “I would advise any corporate human
resources manager not to use the word ‘games’ in describing a management training
program aimed at improving productivity, communication, morale, etc.,” Steve Cody,
co-Founder and CEO of Peppercomm, a New York City-based strategic communications firm,
told Bloomberg BNA in a Jan. 10 e-mail. “The word immediately suggests light, frivolous
and, ultimately, useless content.”

The employer’s goal should be to give employees “skills they can readily apply to
their jobs immediately after the training,” he said.

Employers should avoid activities that:

“Involve physical contact or are too social, such as excessive drinking,”
Goodspeed said. “These could lead to inappropriate behavior and offended employees.”

Don’t have a clear link to a business purpose. “Tenuous links that are too far fetched
can be greeted with major eye rolling and cynicism!”
Kerr said.

Involve “humor that could be perceived as sexist, political or racist in nature,”
Kerr said.

Result “in someone feeling like they were publicly embarrassed or humiliated in front
of their peers,” Kerr said. “This can happen through role-playing scenarios that end
up veering off course or training games where people are called upon to perform or
take part in some outrageous behavior in front of their peers.” Don’t force people
to participate, he said.

If you’re not sure whether something is appropriate, err on the side of caution and
assume it’s not, Peppercomm’s Chief Comedy Officer, Clayton Fletcher, told Bloomberg
BNA in a Jan. 10 e-mail.

“We’ve had tremendous success building teamwork, morale, and storytelling skills using
techniques like the ‘one-word story,’ in which a group works together to build a coherent
and complete narrative with each participant contributing only one word at a time,”
and teaching employees how to write and perform (appropriate) stand-up comedy, Fletcher
said. “These exercises are much more effective in creating a healthy corporate culture
than falling backwards into each other’s arms or carrying an egg across the room on
a spoon could ever hope to be.”

Caution must be your byword in today’s sensitive environment. “Be careful of watching
the line between fun competition and overly aggressive competition that might fuel
unintended consequences or result in animosity between participants back in their
workplace,” Kerr said.

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